A hockey lesson for young South side

NORTH DOWN SECONDS 7 SOUTH ANTRIM SECONDS 1

NORTH Down gave South a hockey lesson on Saturday and went some way to exorcise the memories of their defeat earlier in the season at Laurelhill.

South began the game brightly, belying their modest league position and put the North Down defence under pressure. They were getting a lot of joy through Jack Redpath and Paul Maguire on the right hand side and despite creating a couple of chances didn’t get the opener.

North Down went a goal up when they were awarded a short corner and a clever switch saw the ball turned in at the near post.

South went two goals down after a goal mouth scramble and they feared the worst against a team who had now scored over 100 goals this season. Not allowing themselves to be over-awed they scored an excellent goal when Paul Maguire converted from close range when Stewart Bittle found him with a good pass in the circle. South went into the half one goal down and were very pleased with their first half efforts.

South spoke about the importance of keeping a high level of performance in the second half during the break but unfortunately they were not able to keep pace with a rampant North Down attack. The champions in waiting came to life in the second half and scored 3 goals in quick succession through lethal counter-attacks. South’s youthful team struggled to keep the pace with the sharp home team but credit to them as they continued to fight and created 2 or 3 of their own chances and were unlucky not to get a couple of goals through Alister and Willie Redpath (Jnr) towards the end of the game.

North Down struck twice again at the death to make the score line look a little bit more predictable but South can be encouraged with their first half performance and know that they go into 4 very winnable games at the end of the season.

Thanks go to Brian Wilson for travelling to umpire.